With His Own Two Hands
by TheoreticallyEva
Summary: Making a nice anniversary gift would be so much easier if Edward could still use alchemy.


**Disclaimer:** Obviously, nothing in FMA belongs to me. If only.

 **Author's Note:** This one is dedicated to my husband. It popped into my head while I was trying to make him a Christmas present that wasn't turning out to be as nice as it was in my head. I didn't have time to write it until now.

And no, the present that I've depicted Edward making for Winry isn't what I made for my husband, but it was more appropriate for the story. I'm also pretending that a bride and groom sharing a wine bottle is part of the traditional Amestrian wedding ceremony.

* * *

Yet again, the paintbrush seemed to spontaneously develop a mind of its own, slipping beneath his fingers just enough to streak some black paint outside of the line in which he had been trying to keep it. If the brush could speak, it would probably be sniggering at Edward's snarl as he restrained himself from chucking it across the room. As soon as he had a chance to grab another brush, he dabbed it in some white paint and tried to cover up the stray black, but, of course, the little area simply came out gray. To Edward's eyes, it stuck out sorely against the rest of the white and black. What an amazing difference just a few centimeters can make. With a sigh, he stood back and squinted at his creation thus far. The glass wine bottle on which he was painting somewhat resembled mahogany wood, although there were a few spots where the paintbrush had slightly smudged the effect in a burst of independence. No matter how hard he tried, it seemed that he never could get the white circle as perfect as he wanted - paint is quite different from chalk, and curving glass was an unfamiliar medium to him in comparison to flat surfaces - but it seemed close enough. He hadn't had much trouble with making the twelve tick marks around the inside border of the circle, but painting two straight lines from the center was harder than he thought, especially when the brush decided that it had other ideas. Still, altogether, he supposed his work looked fairly similar to a clock, besides that blasted gray spot right next to the minute hand stretching toward the top of the face. At least the other hand turned out all right; it was clearly pointing to the middle of the face's right side. Now all that was left was to make the pendulum along the neck of the bottle.

However, Edward took a few minutes to let his frustration simmer out. Knowing he couldn't rest for long, he held his breath for a moment to listen for any sound of Winry awake upstairs. She had pulled an all-nighter again and had been passed out for hours. He kept telling her to stop doing that because it wasn't good for her health, not to mention he preferred her next to him in bed at night, but she wouldn't listen to him. Surprise, surprise. Well, at least it worked out in his favor today. Since they both worked at home - she with her automail, he with his scholarly writings - it could be hard to find time alone. Usually, he didn't mind much, at least not when it came to Winry, but when it was this close to their first wedding anniversary, he had been getting impatient for a chance to have a few hours to himself without raising her suspicions.

Once he felt calm enough to pick up the paintbrush again, Edward set to work using a darker brown color to make the likeness of a pendulum protruding from beneath the clock's face. It wasn't long before his cheeks reddened in irritation again, though. At first, the pendulum didn't stand out enough against the rest of the clock, but when he tried using black paint to bring it out more, then it just looked unrealistic. Who was he kidding anyway? There wasn't a single realistic thing about it. Clearly, it was the work of an amateur. His imagination made it look so much better.

Exhaling a sound that was half-sigh and half-grumble, Edward sat back in his chair and tossed the paintbrush atop the newspaper laid out on his desk. Upon glancing at his hands, he frowned when he noticed a few spots of paint on them. When he stared again at the sloppily painted glass before him, he considered the fact that just a few years ago, he probably could have come up with some kind of transmutation circle to create the perfect paint job for this bottle. It would have looked professional then. Beautiful, even.

The memory of the door to Truth sprung up in his mind. Back then, he was filled with the confidence that the people closest to him would still love him without his ability to perform alchemy. Up until that point, he had not been fully conscious of the fact that alchemy had started out as a means for him to obtain the love that he wanted. Although his mother had not been neglectful by any means, her excitement over his talent drove him to continue pursuing it in an effort to make her smile. After she died, he tried using it to revive her and her motherly love. Following that, it became the best way for him to serve those who meant the most to him; his skills saved lives and helped him build his most cherished relationships. Alchemy was an integral part of his identity, but he had given it up.

It's not that he regretted it - as long as his brother was able to live a full and happy life, Edward could never regret his decision - but even after all this time, he was still struck with a certain sadness over it. Winry deserved something wonderful. He could have made a fitting gift for her in mere seconds if he could still use his own two hands to generate alchemy. As it was, he still had his hands, but they no longer had any power, and they didn't seem to be enough on their own now.

With a shake of his head, Edward reminded himself that pity parties were useless. It was time to focus on the task at hand - and that task was to hide the bottle before Winry woke up. Fortunately, just minutes before he heard her exit their bedroom, he managed to make space for it in one of the cabinets in his office; she hardly ever stepped foot in there, having no patience for his messy habits. Now all that was left was to wait a few days for their anniversary to arrive.

* * *

He did not have to wait very long. The older he got, the faster Edward felt time run. On the morning commemorating their first year of marriage, Edward awoke to the scent of steak and eggs beckoning to him from the kitchen. With a bright smile and a kiss, Winry greeted him and urged him to sit at the table. Although they conversed as they ate, Edward was barely aware of it; his mind was on the bottle in his cabinet. He hoped she didn't notice how he was jiggling his leg nervously beneath the table.

The moment they had both swallowed their last bites and set down their forks, Edward moved to stop Winry from rising. "I'm going to get something for you," he said. "Close your eyes."

"Already?" Winry asked. "I was planning to give you something later."

"I just want to get it over with," Edward replied, then thought better of his wording. "I mean - I mean I just don't want to wait anymore."

Although she raised a quizzical brow, Winry obeyed without further protest.

Satisfied, Edward hastened to his office to retrieve the bottle. When he returned to the kitchen, he set it down as noiselessly as possible in front of her, so that Winry could not guess what it was before he told her that she could look at it. Glancing over its imperfection one last time, Edward held back a grimace and told himself that it would just have to do. Obviously, it was too late to give her something else.

"Ed?" Winry called uncertainly.

"Right, right, I'm here," Edward answered hurriedly as he stood behind her and squeezed her shoulders. "You can open your eyes now."

From his position, Edward couldn't see Winry's expression when she observed the bottle before her, but he certainly heard her silence. After a few anxious moments passed, she took it carefully in her hands to study it. At that point, heart pounding, Edward bent to look at her face and found her mouth open in awe. She turned the bottle around and around again as she smoothed her hands over the paint, including the gray spot that now seemed more offensive than ever. At last, she looked at him, blinking her lovely blue eyes.

"You made this?" she queried.

Scratching the back of his head, Edward replied, "Yeah. I did." Suddenly overcome with the urge to explain himself, he gestured toward the clock face. "See, it says three o'clock - the time that we started saying our vows on our wedding day. I painted it on the wine bottle that we shared for the ceremony."

At that, Winry's eyes widened, and she hugged the bottle. "Oh, Edward. You kept it?"

Edward nodded, blushing and smirking self-consciously as he moved his chair closer to hers and sat on it. "I kept it hidden in my office." He paused as he frowned again at the bottle. If only he could just clap his hands and fix that stupid paint! "And I - I'm sorry that it doesn't really look very good. I thought it wouldn't be that hard, but it looked way better in my head. If I could still use alchemy, I would have - "

Winry's lips on his quieted him immediately. Her hand rose gently to his cheek, and her thumb caressed the skin just below his eye. When she pulled away, they rested their foreheads against each other. Edward could feel her flower-scented hair brush his brow as she said, "It's so sweet and so beautiful. I absolutely love it, Ed. Thank you so much."

In one hand, she pressed the bottle against her chest, and she used her other hand to slide the backs of her fingers tenderly along his jaw line. He wrapped both arms around her as the memories of the loss of his alchemy felt like they were being painted over by her breath on his face. They sat that way for a while.

By the time they had passed the day and left the house to keep their dinner reservation, the painted bottle was hanging over the headboard on their bed. There it stayed - with its frozen pendulum, its slightly crooked clock face forever depicting the hour of three o'clock, its brownish and gray smudges - until their august years laid them to rest, and their oldest child took it off the wall as part of his inheritance. In all that time, Winry always said that it was one of the most beautiful gifts Edward had ever given her. And, she would proudly add, he made it with his own two hands.


End file.
